A couple of days ago, Janette called and said she could hear some kind of animal scrabbling around her duct work and was hoping it was a mouse that would find its way back out. The night before last, she called again to say that whatever it was had made it up the basement stairs, scratched on the door like a cat who wants out, and then bumbled back down the stairs. Since she's scared of the basement in general and the really creepy stairwell in particular, she called on Big Sister to come and brave the Scary Basement to see what was there. When I went down, I heard something banging around the far end (of course) of the basement and I followed the sound through the cobwebs and scary dark places to the crappy old shower in the farthest corner. Reeeaally hoping it wasn't a skunk, I closed in on it, and found it to be a very frightened wood duck. How the poor thing got into her basement is still a mystery (we are all leaning toward the old, unused chimney as the culprit and I'll look the next time I'm forced to go down there to see if there's a cleanout door that's open) but it definitely wanted out. I was able to get it out, after some Three Stooges-type bumbling, and brought it up and out to the back yard, where it got a running start and launched off into the woods.
Later, I spent a sweaty couple of hours assembling and raising the purple martin house I got Mom for Christmas I-don't-know-how-many years ago. It's now waiting beside the garage for its first occupants. June seems late to be putting up bird houses, but up here the established martin colonies have only been here for a couple of weeks and it's time for the juveniles, the ones who actually colonize new houses, to arrive. So it's off to the Purple Martin Watch web site to see where they're at. Hopefully we'll get a taker and not fill the thing with starlings or wrens. We'd settle for barn swallows, who would do just a good a job at catching mosquitoes, I guess.
A couple of days ago, Janette called and said she could hear some kind of animal scrabbling around her duct work and was hoping it was a mouse that would find its way back out. The night before last, she called again to say that whatever it was had made it up the basement stairs, scratched on the door like a cat who wants out, and then bumbled back down the stairs. Since she's scared of the basement in general and the really creepy stairwell in particular, she called on Big Sister to come and brave the Scary Basement to see what was there. When I went down, I heard something banging around the far end (of course) of the basement and I followed the sound through the cobwebs and scary dark places to the crappy old shower in the farthest corner. Reeeaally hoping it wasn't a skunk, I closed in on it, and found it to be a very frightened wood duck. How the poor thing got into her basement is still a mystery (we are all leaning toward the old, unused chimney as the culprit and I'll look the next time I'm forced to go down there to see if there's a cleanout door that's open) but it definitely wanted out. I was able to get it out, after some Three Stooges-type bumbling, and brought it up and out to the back yard, where it got a running start and launched off into the woods.
Later, I spent a sweaty couple of hours assembling and raising the purple martin house I got Mom for Christmas I-don't-know-how-many years ago. It's now waiting beside the garage for its first occupants. June seems late to be putting up bird houses, but up here the established martin colonies have only been here for a couple of weeks and it's time for the juveniles, the ones who actually colonize new houses, to arrive. So it's off to the Purple Martin Watch web site to see where they're at. Hopefully we'll get a taker and not fill the thing with starlings or wrens. We'd settle for barn swallows, who would do just a good a job at catching mosquitoes, I guess.
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